Unless they change it up like BB did after S1... The whole YOU DECIDE thing tends to be a dead end for non-talent shows. During BB1, CBS basically caused George to be eliminated by showing his whole town voting to get rid of <Brittany?>. While that type of editing works in Survivor, it's too easy to sway the audience unfairly in a voting system like this.

Folks, the one thing that has to be understood is that the ABC producer in charge made a complete copy of the Big Brother Guest Manual, and apparently some other documents, material and information that is covered by a confidentiality agreement he made with CBS while employed by Big Brother.That is consider a theft of trade secrets, which in some states is a crime, not just grounds for a lawsuit.ABC will have to prove that nothing that producer saw or did at Big Brother was used to develop Glass House, and with him admitting that half of the staff he hired had worked at Big Brother beforehand makes the whole thing even worse for ABC. Because all of them had confidentiality agreements with CBS from working on Big Brother.ABC is going to have a major problem scheduling-wise if the TRO is issued (and from my experience I do think it is likely to happen at this point.)This is different from a situation where similar new shows are separately developed by competiting networks, since ideas per se can't be copyrighted. But the typed copy of that manual is a far worse situation because it show something far more than "fair use."It's an ugly situation but I think ABC shot itself in the foot this time.

Have you seen his deposition though? If not, then everything so far is heresay. While it appears likely that the producer had a copy of the manual, is it known for sure if the manual was copied verbatim for the new show? Maybe he used it as a reference of what not to do to prevent said copyright infringement? Without a true copy of the deposition, this is unknown and everything is speculation until it is known.

bcp, in the material I've seen is that the producer had the entire manual copy typed while he was still at CBS and working to develop something for ABC. It really doesn't get any worse than that. I could give you analogies from almost any field where the result was an injunction against the infringer and the new employer. From what has been reported (see Dadeline.com) and well as the material from the court filing posted abpve, not even the lawyers for both sides knew for sure about this until the deposition that took place last Sunday. I've been involved on cases like this in the past (one of the worse I've personally seen was software code theft that was innovative at the time) involving some of the biggest corporations in the U.S. If you're a student then think of someone copying a term paper vertaim and using it for themselves. Except here big bucks are involved.

bcp, in the material I've seen is that the producer had the entire manual copy typed while he was still at CBS and working to develop something for ABC. It really doesn't get any worse than that. I could give you analogies from almost any field where the result was an injunction against the infringer and the new employer. From what has been reported (see Dadeline.com) and well as the material from the court filing posted abpve, not even the lawyers for both sides knew for sure about this until the deposition that took place last Sunday. I've been involved on cases like this in the past (one of the worse I've personally seen was software code theft that was innovative at the time) involving some of the biggest corporations in the U.S. If you're a student then think of someone copying a term paper vertaim and using it for themselves. Except here big bucks are involved.

In the material that you have seen. Does this mean you have physically held and read the actual deposition or are you relying on what someone else is saying it says?

Context is also important. Entire manual copied. According to deadline, "Big Brother Guest Manual". What is a guest manual? Have you read it? Is it rules for the contestants while in the house, like no violence, property damage, threats, etc? Is it a complete breakdown of how things work? Is it a guideline for choosing guests? Does it list how the cameras work? How the competitions are set up? Does this guest manual include the "Big Brother Master Control schedule" deadline says rosen says he consulted to determine how many people would be needed?

Please understand, I am not putting you down or anything like that, I just take things with a HUGE grain of salt unless I have access to all the relevant material. Since I am never going to work for CBS on Big Brother, it is unlikely I will ever know the answers.